By Chad Ingram

T here’s more than one way to skin a cat as the somewhat morbid phrase goes just as there are multiple ways to cast a ballot.

Different sorts of folks will employ different voting methodologies as they hit the polls during next month’s federal election.

There are the team players the voters who regardless of any circumstance including the strength or weakness of party leaders or local candidates will vote for the same party they always do.

Such blind partisanship while nonsensical and even damaging in my personal view is widespread and will help lay the foundational numbers.

No matter what happens between now and Oct. 19 for instance Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party is likely to garner no less than 30 or so per cent of the popular vote.

(Unless more candidates are caught urinating in people’s coffee mugs . . . but that seems highly unlikely.)

There are those who vote at the macro level with the Prime Minister’s Office in mind.

A Facebook friend of mine recently posted that this time around he’s not even paying attention to local candidates guided instead by what the party leaders have to say and his desire to see a new leader for the country.

There are those who will vote locally casting their ballots for the Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock candidate whom they feel would do the best job representing the riding on Parliament Hill.

Unfortunately with the influence of party politics being at an arguably all-time high one could reasonably make the case that this doesn’t much matter and that what’s best for any riding is to have an MP who is a member of the sitting government.

Look at the way federal stimulus funding has been distributed during the past several years for example and you may begin to see a pattern.

Also unfortunately one of the most popular ways to cast a ballot in this country is to not cast one at all and some 40 per cent of eligible voters won’t exercise their privilege in six weeks’ time.

But no matter how you skin the proverbial cat you should make plans to attend the local meeting/debate for HKLB candidates at the Pinestone Resort and Conference Centre on Monday Sept. 21 at 7 p.m.

While hosted by the local chapter of CARP it should be noted the issues discussed will not be of interest only to seniors but will run the full gamut of relevancy.